Mrs Macbeth
by MissAtomicBomb77
Summary: Just a little piece from Nina's point of view. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.


Still working on Just Breathe, have three chapters done, but not in the right order and chapter four is just a hot mess because too much is going on in such a short period of time. Working on it, like a befuddled basset hound.

Anyone, my one shot with Nina Howard.

* * *

Before they meet, she does her research.

It was years of training, years of using her sources and resources to learn everything that she could about someone. She started with his adolescence and his college years. She was even able to shake some trees for photos of a young and undeterred William McAvoy. She wanted to see if she could look at him and actually see if the relationship he had with Mackenzie had made a difference in him, in his looks, in his eyes.

She pieced together the women that he had dated, or taken to public events. There were so many of them, for such brief periods of time. It bothered her slightly that they all looked the same: tall blond and legs up to their necks. Not drastically different from her own reflection. Mackenzie was the outlier in his relationship string – she was the only one with dark hair and dark eyes with any length of history greater than a few dates and Nina would hazard to guess – she was the only one out of them all with true spunk.

She knows from the onset, from the minute they shared that intimate moment in the Executive Dining Room that he was a broken man. That he was in love with someone that he wouldn't let himself have. She doesn't know where this is going, but sometimes it's nice to have someone work for your attention. He seems so passive at first. He has this adolescent charm to him that she falls for despite her best efforts not to.

He's kind, he's very aware of her likes and dislikes. Perhaps it's a bit of his Midwestern charm that causes him to hold doors and usher her in with his hand on the small of her back. He enjoys ordering her meals for her, consulting with her, making sure that he understands. How she prefers to have her salad dressing on the side, light on the croutons, pass on the bread before the meal. All of these small things to show her that he cares and is paying attention to her wants and needs.

She's cautious at first, because she doesn't know him that well. She's had few true interactions with him and in the beginning he's a little aggressive, only enough to convince her to give him a chance. She could not have told you the minute it happened but once he was confident that she was going to stay, that they had settled into a quiet sense of normalcy, he changed, he softened.

They take quite a bit of effort to not talk about work at first. She learns that he doesn't really like her one word answers about his broadcast and he couldn't be bothered with anything in the entertainment world that doesn't involve Stephen Sondheim. So the first few months, work is something they really don't discuss in anything but abstract terms. _How was work? What did you eat for lunch? What time do you think you'll be home tomorrow?_

He never raises his voice to her. Never seems to get upset or overly angry about anything. She enjoys watching him work, because whether he knows it or not, he's constantly working. Watching the news or absently checking his email. Reading off the internet on one of the seven (yes, seven) various laptop and tablet devices he has stashed around his apartment. Then, it starts to happen and again, she doesn't know what she's done to let him ask her, but they begin to talk. They talk about numbers and ratings and his concerns with them both creep out of him. He asks her questions about presentation and poise and what color suits he should be wearing on the air.

Do they go out enough? Do they go out too much? Is he careful to be seen with the right people at the right events? He goes out of his way to be bipartisan in person but bemoans the GOP and their series of lackluster moves in the forthcoming election in the quiet of his own apartment. They never stay at her modest brownstone and she doesn't mind so much because he does his very best to make her welcome to stay, even if after they've had sex he doesn't join her for sleep. He's even taken to buying (well, having his personal shopper buy) her aloe and wheatgrass drinks that she likes to have in the mornings. Everything was starting to blend into a nice domestic kind of life.

Nina should not have done it, but she couldn't help herself, she let doubt creep in. It seemed almost too domestic, too easy. She couldn't shake that she knew deep down that he was using her to fill a void of having something other than work to commit to. Soon, he was spending more and more time with her as she learned from sources other than Will, then eventually Will, that Mackenzie was working the long hours, working on a special report. This, in part, answered Nina's unspoken question on why he was suddenly more available and looking for her to be with him during the night. Nights that seemed to be increasing in their frequency.

Yet she hadn't been invited to go back to Nebraska. She didn't even think anyone knew he left except for her. She helped him pack a few things and she picked out a wonderful suit for him to wear for the funeral, making sure everything was in his garment bag, ready to go. She saw him fish around his desk for his checkbook and watched him add a few hundred dollars to his wallet. It dawned on her that he likely was preparing to settle his father's debts, if there were any to be settled.

He doesn't ask for much and when he did, she inadvertently fed into his unspoken fear when he returned, his perpetual lack of confidence that he was doing the right thing. She knew that he had been a little more sensitive since the death of his father and she guessed perhaps this was what started him asking for her direct input on his work and his public persona.

When you're right in the middle of something, sometimes it's very had to see the endgame. She knew for a long time this relationship wasn't going to last. She could not have told you how it would have ended. She wanted to tell him that she was doing only what he asked of her, only giving him the advice he solicited and that he craved from her so desperately. Then he left her in the green room, cutting her with his sliver tongue and leaving her there to her own devices. It was over and today, she realizes that it was nothing more than a business transaction. That it really wasn't a relationship with the give and take that all relationships should have. He used her and the sad part to her was that she knew he was in the exact same place she found him all of those months ago and that their 'relationship' had no impact on him.


End file.
